Onésimo Teotónio Almeida was born in the Azores (São Miguel) in 1946 and has lived in the United States since 1972. He earned his PhD in Philosophy from Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), where he was a professor in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, also teaching at Wayland Collegium for Liberal Learning and in the Renaissance and Early Modern Studies Program at the same university for half a century. Brown awarded him an honorary professorship, the Royce Family Professorship in Teaching Excellence. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Aveiro and Lusófona University. He was the official speaker on June 10, 2018. He divides his time between free writing (chronicles, short stories, plays, prose poems) and essays, which occupy a central place in his work. Some of his titles include Despenteando Parágrafos, A Obsessão da Portugalidade, O Século dos Prodígios, and Diálogos Lusitanos.